# Price transparency data for employers > Benchmark what your health plan pays each provider, steer employees to high-value care and renew with real prices. Coming soon for self-funded employers. For self-funded employers. HTML version: https://ushealth.io/for/employers Your plan has agreed a price with every provider in its network, and for the same service those prices can differ several times over. US Health.io turns the rates insurers publish into benchmarks you can act on at renewal, in plan design and when you guide employees to care. ## One knee MRI, one network, twelve prices Illustrative example: what one network pays twelve providers in one metro area for a knee MRI, from $480 to $3,250, with a median of $1,140. Moving 100 of the plan's 500 scans a year from a provider paid $1,900 to one paid $650 would save $125,000. (Illustrative example, not real prices.) ## You pay the claims, but you rarely see the prices A self-funded plan pays for every claim, yet the prices behind those claims have sat inside contracts between insurers and providers. Renewal conversations lean on headline discounts off billed charges, which don't tell you what a service actually costs. Since July 2022, health insurers have had to publish the rates they negotiate with every in-network provider. The files are public, but they are enormous and full of duplicates and placeholder rates. We clean them and line them up, so you can see what your network pays, and what others pay, for the services your employees use most. ## Why comparing prices matters - **Up to 40×**: difference in price for the same service within a single metro area ([Health Care Cost Institute, Past the Healthy Marketplace Index](https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/past-the-healthy-marketplace-index-exploring-actual-prices-paid-for-specific-services-by-metro-area)) - **$562 – $9,691**: negotiated rate for an outpatient colonoscopy in the Chicago area, depending on where it was done ([Trilliant Health, 2025 price transparency report](https://www.trillianthealth.com/market-research/reports/2025-price-transparency)) - **67.5% lower**: median colonoscopy price at an ambulatory surgery center than at a hospital outpatient department ([Trilliant Health, 2025 price transparency report](https://www.trillianthealth.com/market-research/reports/2025-price-transparency)) - **Since July 2022**: health insurers and plans have had to publish the rates they negotiate with providers ([CMS, Transparency in Coverage final rule fact sheet](https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/transparency-coverage-final-rule-fact-sheet-cms-9915-f)) ## What price data does for your plan - **Benchmark your network**: See what your carrier pays for your highest-cost services, compared with other insurers' networks in the same market. - **Steer to high-value care**: Find the providers and sites of care, such as independent imaging centers and ambulatory surgery centers, that charge a fraction of the hospital price for the same service. - **Renew with evidence**: Bring rate comparisons to renewals and RFPs instead of relying on discount percentages alone. - **Use the data you're entitled to**: Group health plans attest each year that their contracts don't block access to cost and quality data. Price data helps you put that access to work. ## Questions you'll be able to answer - What does our carrier pay for an MRI, a colonoscopy or a knee replacement at each provider near our employees? - Is another carrier's network cheaper for the services our members use most? - Which providers and sites of care should our navigation or incentive program point people to? - How do our network's rates compare with the market median? ## What's coming - **Web portal** (For employers, brokers and providers, coming soon): Compare negotiated rates by procedure, provider, insurer and market, and export what you find. - **Reports** (Benchmarks and custom analysis, coming soon): Ready-made benchmark reports for your market and plans, or an analysis built around your question. ## How it will work 1. **Pick your market and carrier**: Choose where your employees live and the networks your plan uses. 2. **See your benchmark**: Your network's rates next to every other network's, for the services your plan pays for most. 3. **Act on it**: Explore in the portal or get a benchmark report to take into renewal and plan design. ## Questions ### Do we need to share claims data? No. Benchmarks are built from the negotiated rates insurers publish. Adding your own claims later would show where your spend is concentrated, but it isn't needed to compare prices. ### How is this different from a discount analysis? A discount analysis compares percentages off billed charges. Negotiated rates are the actual dollar amounts a plan has agreed to pay each provider for each service, so they show which network is cheaper for the care your members use. ### Which insurers will be covered? We're building coverage from the files US health insurance companies publish under federal price transparency rules. Tell us which carriers and markets matter to you when you join early access. ### When can we use it? The portal and reports are coming soon. Join the early-access list and we'll get in touch as benchmarks for your market are ready. ## Get early access for your plan Tell us your market and carrier, and we'll let you know when your benchmarks are ready. [Request early access](mailto:hello@ushealth.io?subject=Early%20access%3A%20employer%20benchmarks) (email to hello@ushealth.io; no pricing yet). ## Related - [Compare carrier networks on negotiated rates](https://ushealth.io/for/brokers.md) - [Payer rate benchmarking for providers](https://ushealth.io/for/providers.md) - [What machine-readable files are](https://ushealth.io/what-are-mrf-files) - Glossary: [Negotiated rate](https://ushealth.io/glossary/negotiated-rate) - Glossary: [Transparency in Coverage](https://ushealth.io/glossary/transparency-in-coverage) - Glossary: [In-network rate file](https://ushealth.io/glossary/in-network-rate-file) - Glossary: [Place of service](https://ushealth.io/glossary/place-of-service)